Recipe

April is National Garlic Month! We’re close to the end of April, but fear not: the North American garlic harvest lasts through July, and you can pick up the bulbs until Fall. Even after the green stalks wither and the bulbs are drier, your garlic will remain pungent for any months if you store it well.

Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.

There’s feasting at home on the night and the next day, and to make sure everyone gets good things to eat, families send out packages of treats to friends and neighbors. Traditional goodies are hamentaschen, and other treats like our chocolate nut clusters .

Springtime foraging yields a harvest of wild greens to cook at home, like nettles. Make delicious nettles malfatti dumplings with this recipe.

Qatayef - also spelled katayif or qatya’if - is traditionally eaten at Ramadan (get our Ramadan vegetarian ideas here), but it’s a treat anytime. In fact, it’s a treat that’s gone through history. A recipe for qatayif appears in a tenth century Arabic cookbook by the writer Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, who compiled recipes going back to the eighth and ninth centuries. People have been eating qatayif for a very long time.

Grapevine leaves are usually thought of as wraps or savory little parcels stuffed with rice and/or meat. But as our previous post on fish...

If you’ve only ever eaten grapevine leaves as dolmades, you’ll be surprised to learn that those tangy grape leaves add luxurious flavor to a...

The Jordanian-born cook fills syringes with a cannabis compound, and injects sauces, breads, and juicy cuts of meat. He experiments with classic Middle Eastern fare such as stuffed grape leaves and falafel, and puts a nouveau twist on Levantine ingredients: pot-primed pomegranate sorbet, and cannabis and chickpea beignets. 

So here you have a treat you can make for yourself based on anything you have around, from watermelon (which is packed with nutrients), to mint and other herbs which have their own benefits. Play around with the ingredients and find your favorite flavor for summer.

It’s easy to make this natural broth base yourself. Most or all of the ingredients are probably already lurking in your fridge and pantry. A food processor is the kitchen tool I recommend for making it; otherwise, be prepared to do some very fine chopping. I myself just feed everything into the food processor and let it whizz.

It’s like finding a map back to your grandmother’s pantry, but with the tools of a climate-conscious chef.

Luqaimat are particularly cherished during Ramadan, where they play a special role in the iftar meal. After a day of fasting, the sweetness of Luqaimat provides a satisfying and energy-boosting treat to break the fast. The dough balls, soaked in syrup, are a source of comfort and a reminder of the rich cultural and culinary traditions of the Gulf region.

Where camels are as much a part of the landscape as native trees, people know how tender and tasty camel flesh is.

Eggplant, as versatile as a potato. Like spuds, it absorbs other ingredients' flavors but keeps its sturdy personality throughout the cooking. It's a hearty vegetable that appears often in vegetarian/vegan cuisines to provide that satisfying "meaty" background

Eggplant seems an unlikely soup ingredient. But blended with vegetable stock, herbs, and cream, the shiny purple vegetable makes a creamy soup full of Middle-Eastern flavors.